With undead characters like the vampire, the ghost and well, the undead, the horror genre lends itself to the series format. Your main character can “live” for a very long time. It also works well with the standalone novel, because characters tend to die. The trilogy however, has not been extensively explored in horror. Stephen Graham Jones introduced JD “Jade” Daniels in My Heart is a Chainsaw, she survived the follow-up, Don’t Fear the Reaper and returns in the thoroughly thrilling finale, The Angel of Indian Lake. With The Indian Lake Trilogy, Jones proves that bloodbath horror done right can be super-fun and engrossingly complex. The Indian Lake Trilogy is a superb example 21st century American literature, a textured, inventive page-turner that brings the heat, engages the brain and captures your heart.
After the events of Don’t Fear the Reaper, Jade Daniels did four years of jail time to avoid incriminating her friends. Now she’s back in Proofrock, and she’s teaching at the high school where she was once the outcast. But Proofrock is not yet done with her, and, as the book begins, the past is reasserting itself. Jade is reluctant to become The Final Girl, but the narrative that’s closing around her may leave her no choice.
Walking with Jade again is truly a joy. Jones’ prose is hallucinatory, so expect to have your perspective rewired as and after you read. But Jones goes beyond his powerful, first-person narrator, and splices “non-fiction” into Jade’s story to craft a Rashomon-like effect. Even as he ups the body count, violence and death, he plunges deeper into character, social (in)justice, and the long-term dangers of colonialism and capitalism. The novel is, remarkably, over-the-top and subtly nuanced.
The Angel of Indian Lake is irrefutable proof that great writing is alive and well even as it spends a lot of time with death. Importantly, it’s a book with a lot of inventively crafted death that makes the reader feel thrillingly alive.
Stephen Graham Jones and I discussed the underpinnings of not just The Angel of Indian Lake, but The Indian Lake Trilogy as whole. Surprisingly, no gentrifying rich folk were harmed in the process. We’ll try harder next time.
Narrative Species 